Funded Energy Redress Projects

The Mid Devon Energy Partnership will tackle fuel poverty, underheated/energy inefficient homes, and related health issues in Mid Devon. Led by Churches Housing action team (CHAT), the project will partner with Exeter Community Energy (ECOE) to utilise their experience in delivering energy advice services to vulnerable households. The two organisations have existing relationships, presence and activities within communities across the district, by working together they will help more households to make energy efficiency and fuel savings advice/support. The project will provide 1-2-1-person centred advice and support, plus drop-in clinics, pop up events and community outreach in towns and villages across the district.

Working with 9 local authorities, 2 Fire and Rescue Services and local community organisations, our “Warm and Well” programme will raise awareness and provide new dedicated support to help struggling residents to better weather this Cost of Living Crisis". They will do this by helping them to reduce their energy demand (through measures and behaviour change), access any financial support available, understand and manage their fuel bills, and increase their confidence to participate in the energy market when price competition re-starts. They will support over 8,200 vulnerable households with telephone and face -to-face advice and casework support, train 132 front line and community staff, deliver 400 home visits, and create two regional forums to increase collaborative approaches to tackling the fuel crisis.

The Better Housing Better Health project will support vulnerable consumers at a crucial time, giving them access to high-quality energy advice, advocacy, and interventions across a large area of the East of England.  The project will be providing direct support to 10,000 households in vulnerable situations through a comprehensive engagement programme targeting deprived communities promoting NEF’s free-to-access ‘Better Housing Better Health’ service (BHBH) in several new areas. To enhance support available, NEF will conduct 500 in-home energy visits to those needing additional care and administer £180,000 of emergency funding to consumers in extreme energy hardship.  This will include funding to train 20 new ‘energy champions’ resulting in a further 10,000 vulnerable consumers being supported.  The project has been designed to provide an immediate response to the current ‘energy crisis’ and will benefit from all of NEF’s experience and expertise in supporting vulnerable energy consumers.

The project is piloting four different kinds of technology solutions into households that have a visually impaired person with a visual processing disorder (VPD). The four different mechanism will be evaluated to identify which one provides the most benefit in terms of operability in relation to the level of disability of the householder; cost and practicality to enable the different interventions to be made available to all. Everyone participating will be assessed by a specialist in Visual Processing to determine which technology is most likely to be effective and any other support that they might need. Advice on energy saving and management will also be given, specifically addressed towards those who have visual impairments and any participants who are eligible for works under Eco (which is likely to be all those taking part as they are classed as Vulnerable with a disability) but have not had any work carried out, will have it made accessible to them, maximising the opportunity to enhance the benefits and show what is possible if the correct interventions take place.

The Energy Savings Awareness Campaign will identify and deliver energy saving advice to households experiencing fuel poverty because of the recent energy price hikes. Beneficiaries will include refugees that have been given their status and a tenancy. These group of people are more vulnerable and at risk and in need due to language barrier. All home/telephone advice will be delivered by a trained adviser who will work full time to deliver energy savings advice. The project will also produce several energy savings multilingual advice videos that will be heavily promoted on social media in target communities.

The South London Energy Efficiency partnership (SLEEP) project will support the continued evolution of the successful SLEEP project, which aims to provide a large-scale and strategically coordinated effort to tackle the unprecedented levels of rising fuel poverty across South London, brought about by the cost of living crisis and ongoing increases to the energy price cap. Groundwork London, working in partnership with SELCE, Thinking Works and 11 Local Authorities, will deliver holistic and targeted interventions consisting of high-quality (face-to-face and online/phone-based) energy advice, directly supporting 5,900 of the most vulnerable South London households to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, save money on energy bills and better represent their interests in the energy market. Through the provision of ‘Money Matters Champion’ training to Energy Advisors, this project will trial the integration of more comprehensive/wider-reaching income and debt advice into home visits, recognising that income and debt are key drivers of fuel poverty. 

The Evaluating solar PV with electric heating project will build the case for social landlords installing solar PV after the feed-in tariff. It will assess how solar PV can make different forms of electric heating more affordable. North Devon Homes will install 16 solar PV systems in socially rented rural homes in North Devon with existing electric heating systems. These homes will have either storage heaters, storage heaters and batteries, ASHPs or ASHPs and batteries. A further 2 homes will have a Wondrwall system fitted with solar PV, battery storage and infrared heating panels. 11 of properties will also have energy saving smart hot water cylinders fitted with solar immersion controllers. The project will build on an earlier study with ASHPs and batteries. The potential for other income/savings from the smart export guarantee, advanced smart tariffs, peer to peer trading/Energy Local Club and flexibility payments will be considered.

The Hampshire Energy Advice Service will reach out, with targeted messaging, to 35,000 vulnerable households across Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton that are struggling to keep warm and well. The project aims to increase the provision of affordable warmth advice across the region to meet the significant increase in demand as a result of the energy crisis. Through proposed activities they will directly support 3,800 households over the phone online and with face-to face energy advice at events. The partnership will engage key council and third sector services across the region, engaging and training 500 frontline workers to raise awareness of fuel poverty and highlight the help available. In addition they provide a greatly enhanced digital offering, practical support through distributing energy saving packs and discretionary grants to those most in need. They will also foster increased collaboration between partners.

We will develop a Community Energy Champion Programme to support those hard to reach vulnerable residents who wouldn’t otherwise engage with our existing affordable warmth service and welfare provision. Our Energy Champion programme will recruit 10 local volunteers from fuel poverty hotspot areas from across the borough to become Community Energy Champions. The volunteers will be recruited based on their existing connections to their local communities and the knowledge and understanding they have of their local areas. They would act as connectors and enable those families who wouldn’t necessarily seek help from public services to access the relevant advice and support. The Champions would help to breakdown those fears and act as link between front line services and the local community.

Our Community Energy Champions will be up skilled and trained to provide brief advice and interventions in energy advice, energy switching , fuel debt. They will understand the professional support available through the AWARM plus service, the wider welfare and lifestyle services and understand how to refer and access those services. The training would include Fuel Poverty and Health, City and Guilds level 2 Energy and fuel Debt advice, and RSPH Understanding Health Improvement, In Mind awareness session and Dementia Friends. As part of our bid we would like to recruit a champion coordinator who would be responsible for identifying, recruiting and supporting the volunteers.

Our bid will also include a PR campaign which would include resources to promote the programme and community road show events at 4 locations.